Issue 4

August 2017

Issue 4: August 2017

Issue 4

In this Issue

There has been much discussion in the Philippine movement about the character of the Duterte regime. It has impelled a number of groups to formulate their tactics vis-à-vis the current regime from ‘engagement’ to ‘challenge’ and ‘resist’.

The last few days may be a grim milestone in the war on drugs. In less than 4 days, beginning August 15, police anti-drug squads slew 32 alleged drug pushers in Bulacan and 49 in Metro Manila, for a total of 81 kills. These days may well be the bloodiest in the one-year-old campaign. But what made these days particularly horrific was the execution in Caloocan of 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, who was dragged by police in full view of CCTV cameras, given a pistol by his captors and told to fire it, and then shot.

International

Eric Foner is an award-winning historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, author most recently of Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History, a collection of essays from The Nation magazine. He teaches history at Columbia University and is also a member of the Editorial Board of The Nation. The interview has been edited and condensed.

There are a few interesting things [to note] … starting with the fact that the language and the speech used by this soldier is exactly the same as the speech of the opposition. This is important because he says that they are a group "defending" and looking "to re-establish" democracy in the country but democracy hasn't been broken. When using the same speech of the opposition and saying things like "Maduro is a dictator" and that we live in a dictatorship that tells us the interest these people serve.